Over the weekend, a top Trump official flew down to Florida to have a serious chat with the former president about the fallout from his new tariffs. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly told Trump that the markets are tanking and will keep crashing unless he changes how he talks about his trade war.
According to Politico, Bessent didn’t push Trump to scrap the tariffs, but he did urge him to start talking more about where all this is headed like what the plan is, what deals might be possible, and if there’s any wiggle room to dial things back. One insider summed it up as, “The markets will keep melting unless you shift.”
Apparently, Bessent is the first Trump adviser to speak up (quietly and respectfully) about how damaging this trade talk is becoming, at least when it comes to public messaging. He’s mainly suggesting Trump soften the rhetoric a bit and leave the door open for negotiations maybe even pulling back some of the steep trade barriers he announced last week.
And those tariffs were no joke. Trump slapped a base 10% tariff on all imports, with some countries facing rates as high as 50%. China got hit with a massive 54% rate, while Canada and Mexico saw 25%, and the EU got a 20% tariff.
That announcement sent the markets into a tailspin and now, some folks in Trump’s camp are hoping he’ll tweak the message before things get worse.
Crisis Flight: Trump Pressured to Soften Tariff Rhetoric as Markets Slide”
